Typical Singaporean: Ai Pih Ai Chi (Cheap Yet Good)

[jasminnie 18]

Its really hard to have cheap and good in Sg becos almost everyone also wants the same thing but oh well, we still try our luck lah.

We got our Anchorvale Horizon BTO flat keys in early April and after a full month of consulting 5 different IDs and contractors alike, we finally settled on our current contractor, Nick from Renoguyz.

To be honest, initially we didn't even considered Nick for various reasons:

1) Too sloppy looking. Look as if he isn't serious. When we brought him to our house and told him the many things we wanted done in our house, he just looked around and went "hmm... hor...orh....orh..." without even taking any notes at all!

*Another factor that WOWED us later is that despite not taking down any notes that day, within 24hrs Nick emailed us the quotation with all our comments in detail! This guy may look blur but he's actually very alert of what's going on around him!*

2) Too blunt and too honest. I die die wanted to have my dream of a bathtub in my MBR toilet. Nick kept putting me down and said difficulty such as aircon piping issues, height, etc etc.... to Nick, practically more important.

So we went on to get quotations and consultations with 3 other contractors and ID. For the amount of work that we are planning to reno our flat: MBR wardrobe, bay side window, MBR toilet with cabinet shelving and bathtub, living room feature wall, false ceiling and kitchen cabinets.

No flooring to be done as ours us the Premium scheme from HDB.

We almost picked another contractor who had a good portfolio doing up for MBS until.... my hubby being the sharp one, spotted a quotation from Nick that the latter quoted us for quartz kitchen table top. The other contractor that we almost picked quoted the same cost as Nick, only that his quotation had solid surface table top instead. That means Nick's quotation is cheaper by 2k. 2k is alot for young couples like us as we have to factor in other miscellaneous costs from furnishings to electrical appliances and even our system 4 aircon.

So that's when we decided to go ahead with Nick. No wonder he was recommended by one of my estate neighbor who have read good awesome reviews on Nick from Renoguyz. And being a kiasu lady, prior to my confirmation with Nick, I googled his company's name, his name and even his HP number to make sure I'm throwing my dollar at the right person. Guessed after all my initial impression of him is no less different from the other reviewers: sloppy, dazed and blur looking, blunt, but he gives cheap yet very good workmanship.

So the whole reno loan process went on and after a few more time of meeting up with Nick we began to like him more. His top 优点 is Integrity. He has his reasons for being blunt which is giving the best work done for his customer.

Like how I wanted so much to get chandelier lighting from taobao (cos many of my friends are using the same chandelier and it looks very nice. And cheap too.) for my dining table but Nick says no because the whole look won't fit our quasi Scandinavian-Modern Resort look. I didn't believed him at first and secretly went to Photoshop the 3D design with the mentioned chandelier and I was shocked by how good his visualization is. The chandelier indeed stood out like a sore thumb against the backdrop. Sometimes, lesser is always better. We started to like Nick even more. He rather say No to us than have the whole work end up crap looking. So much so that we ended up consulting him on the colors and types of matching furnishings to pair with the wall colors, cabinet laminates, the full length wall mirror, etc... Thats the good thing about Nick that my husband likes: brutally honest but it's for the good of the customer. Some customers may want their own designs/colors becos they look nice to the customers themselves but may actually not be nice at all becos of the clash. Nick is the sort that he tells us No means No. Yea, we kena lectured by him a few times cos we asked for some colors and designs that actually ended up looking ugly. We rather he be honest and give us the good workmanship than be a Yes man to whatever we wanted and end up look like crap house that is neither here nor there. Yes Man sales tactics never worked for us.

I forgot to add too, for Nick's very low profit margin quotation (no wonder he charge so cheap cos he spoil market ), he gives a value added service as an ID (Nick had prior experience as an ID at D'Trenzo) without the ID cost. One ID we consulted quoted us 32k for less than what Nick offered at $24k despite the ID himself being the spouse of my husband's friend.

I'll post pics of my 3D design flat in this post soon as my flat is still in the process of renovation. So far almost 2 weeks have past and my beloved bathtub and false ceiling is up. The carpentry is gonna happen this week and I'm too excited over it. I'm posting this up first as so far I'm very satisfied with what we've gotten. I will update more in this post as I go along over the next few weeks.

Edited June 29, 2014 by jasminnie

[jasminnie 18]

Kitchen:

Edited July 1, 2014 by jasminnie

[jasminnie 18]

MBR toilet:

Edited July 1, 2014 by jasminnie

[jasminnie 18]

Living room:

*Note: Some Photoshop changes to this 3D design because I wanted it to look as real to the original as possible. I changed the color of the original dark mahogany door to the crappy ugly standard doors that HDB gave us for our Premium flat. I also lightened the walkway wall colors to a lighter shade so it would look brighter and less heavy and dark.

Edited July 1, 2014 by jasminnie

[jasminnie 18]

Bathtub is in!!

Bought from Hoe Kee at $400+. Made of fibreglass. A real challenge to fit a bathtub in cuz Anchorvale Horizon's 4-rm flat bathrooms are infamously known to be pathetically small.

Got my taobao bathtub mat here for safety:

http://detail.m.tmall.com/item.htm?id=23252612363

*status: still on ship waiting to be delivered. Will post actual pics up once loot is here.*

[Takaishi 44]

hey, did u do anything for the bath-tub area? guess need to do extra tiling and piping ba?

[jasminnie 18]

Yup. For bathtub my contractor did the base and cementing and used additional toilet floor tiles to tile the sides of the tub as can be seen in the pic above. Piping if u mean for the drainage there isn't any cos the drainage hole was right below the bathtub drain hole. Only thing the piping done was for the aircon part. Have to run the piping behind the bathtub.

[Takaishi 44]

thanks jas, how much total just for the bath-tub? (excluding bath-tub price) lol

[kensaiz 0]

Hi Jasmine,

Can PM me the contact of Nick?

Thanks!

[jasminnie 18]

thanks jas, how much total just for the bath-tub? (excluding bath-tub price) lol

About $600 to fit in including the cement base and tiling.

[Happysunday 0]

Hi! Just to check, what is your bathtub size?

[jasminnie 18]

Its 700mm by 1500mm. Better to measure yr toilet size first then get a bathtub that fits within the measurements.

[Bibliokitty 0]

Hi can pm me Nick's details as well, please? Need to find good ID! thanks much

[juz4her 0]

Hi can PM me nick's details & quotation?.. TIA

[jasminnie 18]

Carpentry works is finally moving ahead this week. Still partially work-in-progress.

Kitchen:

MBR toilet carpentry: